


Iron Horizon

by yaodai



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels, Stargate - All Media Types, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Language Barrier, That's Not How The Force Works, au- Maul didn't stab Kanan in the face
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-28 04:21:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20772443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yaodai/pseuds/yaodai
Summary: Rodney woke up on a Wraith ship - again - but this time he made new friends!They can't understand a single world he speaks, which is probably a good thing. All things considered.





	Iron Horizon

**Author's Note:**

> \- When your only writing tool is your phone you lean on the fandoms that feel like home  
\- In all my Star Wars fics Maul joins the Rebels instead of Stabbing Kanan in the face. He hated Sidious just a tad bit more than the Jedi.

Rodney McKay knew he had a bad day when he woke up in a place that wasn't his own bed. Well, he certainly wouldn't mind a bed that belonged to someone else either. In this situation even a cold pavement would be an improvement.

His head was pounding, his muscles were twitching uncontrollably, his mouth tasted like he just licked a fistful of batteries and he could hardly move a muscle.  
He didn't really need to open his eyes to tell what was going on and how screwed up he was. The air had that characteristic cold and moist feel to it, with this weird, organic smell, not quite revulsion, but far from pleasant smell to it that just screamed "Wraith!". 

The cosmic vampires once again managed to get a lucky hit on him and dragged his stunned ass to the ship, where they shamelessly put him - brilliant scientist - in their equivalent of a refrigerator. Which was pretty much something between a spiderweb and cocoon, made up from fleshy, sticky tissue, too thick to break through easily. 

Rodney tried to recall what went wrong this time to end him up in this situation - and he wasn't even panicking about the ultimate death coming. It probably meant a whole lot of bad things about his mind, but there were other things going on around him, so he decided to put psychoanalysis aside and concentrate on what was actually important. 

He clearly could hear voices, not too far from it. Feminine, not too loud but tense, whoever the talking woman was she clearly shared Rodney's opinion of how creepy this all was.

There was one problem though - he couldn't understand a single word of it.   
His first thought was that he was brain damaged from all this stunning or maybe hit his head on the way down. But no, he clearly could run mathematical equation in his mind just fine, he also remembered the Star Trek episodes with the usual clarity, so brain was fine.

It meant one thing; Whoever was speaking, was coming from a planet that had no access to the Stargate or lost access to it at some point. It showed at least a promise of contacting an actual civilization and not just a bunch of natives with their pokey sticks, because there were no spooky aliens keeping the world from making too much of a progress.

Rodney decided it was time to make the effort of opening his eyes.

Cracking his lids open, Rodney looked around, unsure how exactly he was going to communicate with the poor chick that was stuck in the Wraith Fridge with him. He was no Daniel Jackson, but all the SGC personnel went through the Making Contact with Potential Allies 101 class. Only it was useless, because everyone in the galaxy was talking in the Gate esperanto and his co-prisoner didn’t get the memo.

Rodney opened his mouth and was about to start talking but the words died on his lips the moment he saw the other person. Rodney's brain received the visuals and simply stopped working.

She looked like a woman; had quite nice eyes, was rather on the slim side, was fashioning something that looked like a very awful orange jumpsuit. And she was green. Honest to God, fresh grass green. She also had no hair. Instead, there were two fleshy, thick things coming from the back of her head, reaching down to her shoulders. She didn't look like a corpse that already was going bad and had no weird holes on the sides of her face - whatever fancy name Carson got for them, they were still holes, dammit - so maybe she wasn't going to murder him brutally the moment she gets free.

Which wasn't any time soon it appeared; she was as tangled up as Rodney himself was and if her small stature was indicating anything, she wasn't all that strong either. 

On the other hand, alien. So he had no idea anyway. 

On the opposite side of the cell was a rainbow blob of colors; this time it was a human girl and... literally just a girl. She looked like a teen, of Asian origins which made the whole thing even weirder because she was talking with the green lady in the same weird language, and had dyed hair. Either that, or japanese cartoons were closer to the truth than anyone else. She was wearing what looked like an armor, all spray painted into a colorful mess of unfamiliar symbols and shapes and just random blobs of paint.

There was also a third person behind the green chick, but all Rodney could see from his spot in this prison were horns and reds and blacks. He had no idea if the skin of that particular alien came in two colors or one and a terrible fashion sense was simply attached.

"Alright, alright!" Rodney found his own mouth running as his brain was trying to figure out how to get out of this situation alive. "This could be way, way worse, trust me, I know how worse looks like! If it was really bad then we would be in the middle of the dining hall, during the lunch break!"

Both women looked at him like he was the alien around here.

"See, this is just prison," Rodney continued, trying to wiggle at least one of his hands out of the bounts. With his hand free, he would be able to dig his fingers into the control panel - and literally so, because Wraith loved the game of operation for some reason - and get himself free. 

"Prison breaks happen all the time, no reason for it not happen here and now! See, you're actually lucky because I'm actually familiar with their technology, it's not all that complicated once you get over the gross factor-" 

The doors leading outside the cell suddenly shifted open, thick membrane sucked into a wall in a fluid motion and with an unpleasant, squishy sound.  
Rodney felt his stomach dropping like a stone. 

This was way too early!

He needed more time, he needed something, anything! Anything but this!

The reality had no mercy and refused to warp itself. 

A Wraith walked into the cell and stopped a few feet away from them, tilting his head in that creepy jerky motion and slowly looked over the prisoners. 

The bastard was one of the big ones, towering over all of them like a bloody mountain. Long, braided hair moved along with his head, so white they appeared to shine with their own light in the dim, reddish lights of the Wraith ship.  
He had no weapons, which was unlucky - the most dangerous thing about the Wraith was always their right hand. If anything, a weapon would be a boon - it could be taken away or at least it could knock you out, so the death was at least painless.

The Wraith stepped forward, heavy fabric of his coat literally pushing the lingering mist aside, his yellow-green eyes flared with interest and hunger when he looked at-

Oh no, Rodney realized in terror. Oh no, no, no, no!

The Wraith was going to feed on that girl. She was probably deemed to be of much less importance than the exotic looking aliens or Rodney himself, probably already recognized as a scientist from Atlantis.  
In any different situation Rodney would be the first one to tell the Wraith to eat anyone but him. He would spill the tale about how much useful he would be alive than dead, how meaningless everyone else was.  
But this was just a teenage girl, a child with eyes wide open, not even fully recognizing the terrible danger she was in, as the monstrous alien tore her out of the sticky prison.

The bonds gave up with a wet snap, startling a gasp out of the victim.

"No!" Rodney shouted, because even he wasn't that person who let children die. "Hey, ugly! Hey, I'm talking to you! Eat me! Eat me, you ass!"

The green woman was screaming too, desperately trying to get out of her bonds. Somehow, she managed to wiggle one of her feet out of the shoe. She couldn't do much with it, it was barely enough to reach the still unconscious male next to her.

The girl rolled out of the way. She kicked at Wraith legs and she did it definitely hard, considering the thud.  
The monster just shifted on its feet and growled angrily, leaning down towards her, reaching out with his right hand. 

The girl shrieked and rolled away once more, immediately after jumping onto her feet. She stood up in a way quite similar to how the soldiers were trained to move, knees bent, hands fisted and close to the chest.

The woman screamed in fury, putting all the strength she could muster into kicking the man next to her.

What for?, Rodney wondered, while his mouths were still occupied with screaming as loud as it was humanly possible. For his to see this too? To experience the horror of seeing someone becoming a Wraith meal, to see as only husk remains of who was a lively, lovely person just a moment ago?

Girl was still kicking and screaming and punching, leaping away and ducking, but the Wraith was just waiting until she tire down and in her eyes, Rodney could see the realization slowly appearing. She went pale, she tensed up, she spat on the floor and said something that definitely sounded like a curse, even if the words were as alien as they could be.

Her eyes darted around, only to stop at the miserable remains of the previous victim.

The Wraith grinned widely, dark, sharp teeth looking even more creepy and menacing than usual. He was openly mocking the girl and her search for the weapon...

The teenager leaped towards the corpse and dig into it without any hesitation, fingernails tearing through the withered, dry surface of the skin. She grabbed at the femur and pulled. The dried out joints snapped with a crack. Stepping on one end, she broke it off completely.

Now with a sharp, improvised weapon, the girl looked at her opponent with a grimace of pure fury on her face. With a closed fist, she hit at her breastplate, once then twice. Whatever words were coming out of her mouth, they were hard and menacing, and aggressive.

The Wraith roared, recognizing the threat in them, even if it still didn't saw the girl as a real danger.

Rodney looked away, not wanting to see the obvious end of this situation. The only one thing else he could concentrate on was the green woman.

She once again kicked at the man next to her. Upon the contact, her foot made a weird sound, like she kicked at a wall or some other hard surface rather than a limb made out of flesh. It was probably just an illusion, a thing his brain made up, unable to deal with the terror of the situation they were in.

This time the woman actually succeeded. The man next to her shifted and made a small noise. Then he blinked.

His eyes reminded Rodney of his own cat of all things possible. The furry bugger also had that weird thing going on, eyes reflecting the light in the darkness so strongly they looked like twin lanterns in a dark room. This guy had the same thing going on, only his eyes for some reason were reflecting much more yellowish light, looking more like small spots of fire than anything else.

The woman started talking feverishly, pulling at her bonds, because of course, there was a teenager still getting murdered on the other side of the room.  
The man slowly raised his head, his odd gaze taking in the surroundings.

Before Rodney managed to stop himself, he looked around too.

The girl was still desperately fending the Wraith off with a broken bone and the monstrous alien was finally fed up with it. With a speed not previously shown, the wraith hit the girl's hand as she tried to stab him.  
The force was enough to make her stumble on her feet and make a pained noise, but her grip on the improvised weapon was still hard.  
However all the Wraith needed was just that short moment.

It grabbed the girl by the throat in a blink of an eye.   
Just as the Wraith was about to pull her up, to start choking her until the blade fell out of her hand, something happened.

The Wraith stiffened and then stopped dead, a wheeze instead of an animalistic groan left its throat.

Something was up in the air too, some odd sort of tension, impossible to miss but unrecognizable. It was like a buzz somewhere in the background and it was setting Rodney's hair on edges even more than just being on a Wraith vessel, waiting to be eaten.  
Rodney blinked and shook his head, but it didn't change anything. The off-putting feeling was still there and the room now looked like something sucked out all the colors out of it, leaving only dark shadows...

And the eyes burning bright. Now they looked like a blazing fire, shining with fury, unnatural and telling the tales of unnamed dangers.  
The male slowly moved forward, the organic bond snapping one after another, firstly freeing one of his legs, then hand, then another leg. He didn't stop moving forward after the last of the bonds was broken. Slowly making his first step, then another, the movement unnaturally fluid.

Finally dropping the girl, the Wraith turned around, its hand going up to its own throat, cat-like eyes widening as the Wraith saw what was going on. Or maybe as the Wraith understood what was going on.

The tattooed man slowly reached out, still metres away from the monstrous alien.

Whatever the off putting buzz in the air was, it rose tremendously. As the man raised his hand, the Wraith rose up too, first on its toes and then in the air.

Rodney's jaw dropped. It was really happening in front of his very own eyes, a Wraith was levitating in the mid air... or rather it was held up by an invisible Force, one that was completely indifferent to its victim scratching up at the throat, desperately fighting for breath.

It looked like an impossibility, but Rodney had read upon the Ancients; of what they could do. Telekinesis was on the list, so it shouldn't be all that surprising, but it was. Just what were the odds to meet someone who was half-way up the higher plane of existence on a Wraith Ship?

The Wraith was starting to trash in the air, its eyes filled with fear for probably the first time in thousands of years, but mouths were still locked in a vicious snarl. It had enough self- control to reach out with the right hand, to try and grab the real attacker...

Suddenly it went completely limp with an expression of shock appearing on its face only a moment before the dark blood came out of its mouth.  
There was a sharp, jarred edge of a bone sticking out of the Wraith chest.

Rodney gasped, though he wasn't sure if it was in admiration or pure horror of seeing a teenager to stab anything vaguely humanoid that was breathing.   
She said something and spat on the ground. 

Rodney was no anthropologist, but could recognize the difference between the languages he couldn't understand. It was somewhat like dr Miko suddenly speaking in Swedish. He couldn't understand either of those languages, but the difference was there. 

The red-black guy responded in kind with a short, bark-like word, letting the Wraith drop on the ground like a sack of potatoes, not paying any attention to the corpse.

It was mildly disturbing that both he and the girl - brushing away those weird, purple hair away from her sweaty forehead - acted like killing someone - something like a Wraith - was no biggie. On the other hand, meeting people - or something close enough - who were able to face the Wraith and live to tell the tale was a good thing.

Green, the only one from the weird group still glued to the wall with organic goo demanded attention, raising her voice enough to sound decisive and annoyed, but not enough to actually shout.

Her bounds broke with a snap as she was pulled forward with an invisible force. No choking this time happened, nor there was floating.

Just a single yelp, as she stepped onto the floor with her bare foot. Jumping in disgust, she quickly picked up her boot and shove it back on with visible relief. 

Yeah, Rodney shared the sentiment. The bounds were organic and the floor wasn't any different. If anything, it looked like a very long tongue, with long, uneven lines of veins and arteries running below and had that unpleasant, oily look to it that made it absolutely repulsive. Thank God for the fucking mist, obscuring most of it.

They have exchanged words, or rather, Green was asking questions, while Conan the Magical Barbarian was giving her answers, very short but meaningful enough to be accepted. They did not make her happy, considering how her expression fell, before she braced herself back up.

With her chin high up, the woman gestured towards Rodney.

"Hi there," he said, fully knowing the attempt was futile, because whichever rock these people were living under up until this time, they had not heard a civilized language before. "Mind to help me out?"

The girl said something, then shrugged and added some more meaningless blabbing to whatever she said previously.  
For the first time in his life Rodney truly regretted that he never dabbed in pseudo-sciences.

Then, suddenly, there was a pull. It was the oddest, and probably one of the most terrifying sensations in his entire life. It felt like an invisible hand grabbed him and squeezed, to the point he was afraid of his internal organs bursting out from every hole in his body. The bonds of the wraith trap were definitely making bruises on his body as he was mercilessly showed against them, pulled further and further forward, up until the bounds broke with a snap.

Instantly, Rodney closed his eyes shut, a membrane jabbing his eyeball out of its socket the last thing on his wishlist. Freedom was as nice as it could be, when one falls face-first into goo, with people standing around and watching the spectacle.   
At least they let him kept what was left of his dignity and get up on his own. 

Then a question was waiting.

The girl was pointing at the corpse and making demanding sounds at him. 

While Rodney didn't magically get the ability to speak in whatever language the aliens were communicating in, he was fairly sure that he would recognize the "what the fuck is that?!" tone of voice anywhere.

"Wraith," he said, pointing at the corpse, just to make sure they knew he was telling them something.

"Wraith," the girl echoed, paying utter attention to spelling the world just right, then looked thoroughly at him. Or rather, at his clothes.  
She passed the distance between them in no time, putting her finger against the insignia on his shoulder with brow furrowed in thought. Then she stepped away, raised her hand with two fingers pointing upwards and made a sound that was oddly similar to "bang-bang".

What the hell, Rodney thought as she repeated the motion.

What could possibly connect his clothes to a gun? Then, by some miraculous fit of genius, it hit him.

Technological advancement! The fabric of his clothes definitely didn't look like it was sewn by hand, more like made by a machine. Societies which were capable of making a material like that were usually able to make things to shoot other things from afar.

So Rodney made his own finger-pistol.

"Bang," he said tentatively, feeling utterly stupid.

The girl grinned happily at this attempt at communication. Then she made a ticking sound and then...

"Boom!" she said, spreading her arms wide open.

Yes, we have explosives too, Rodney thought feeling mildly annoyed.

Then he made his own countdown, making sure to say each number out loud and very, very carefully.

"One... Two...Three!" a finger followed every number just to make sure he was giving enough context to the whole thing. "Blaam!"

The girl clapped her hands, joyful about finding a common language, while the not-humans rolled their eyes.

Well, now Rodney had established that the girl in the armor was the only teenager around.

He took a deep breath and recalled the last few Wraith Hive Ships he was on. It was actually a good thing that these things were at least partially - if not completely - organic. It was hard to shift things in something that was alive without killing it, so everything was more or less in the same place; the only thing that differed was the size of the ship.

Therefore Rodney could estimate where they were, where were the cells with the people destined to become an immediate dinner or to be interrogated and eaten afterwards and where important places like the bridge were located.

"Um... bang-bang this way?" Rodney proposed. Finding a weapon was the first thing Sheppard did in situations like this one.

He meet a three sets of furrowed brow and then nods.

Yes, okay, he just taught the aliens how to count to three, the victory was definitely his. 

Rodney had no other choice but to lead the way. Front lines were definitely not his thing, but at least the girl was sticking close to him, followed by Conan who just seemed to be more annoyed about the whole situation than anything.   
Well, not that Rodney expected a lot from the obvious barbarian, but the physics powers were making him feel somewhat armed, which was a small comfort.

Rodney expected them to bump into at least one group of Wraiths on their way to where Wraith used to store junk that had yet to be examined - for man eaters they were also a bunch of curious buggers that would take everything apart if given the chance - but to his surprise, nothing had happened.

Besides the handful of p-90's and some handguns, there were items Rodney couldn't recognize, but they definitely belonged to the aliens; the colorful helmet was a telltale sign.

Green picked up a small handgun and examined it carefully, while the Teen grabbed the helmet and shoved it onto her head with visible satisfaction. Then she started attaching things to her boots and belt. Lots of things.

Conan seemed to be satisfied with an item that looked like a cross between a walking stick and a mattock, but hey, if one was able to murder people with his brain, he was also free to do so with whatever items he fancied. Multipurposing gardening tools probably was a great help when it came to hiding the bodies.

Green almost made him jump, suddenly standing really close on his other side, her fingers brushing against the emblem on his shoulder, then gesturing towards the leftover p-90 and asking some sort of a question.

"We don't talk the same language, lady, thought we have established that one," the words spilled and then some more fell out of his mouth, because it was making him feel a bit better. Better was good. "But no, I don't think they are dead, they are probably in the holding cell or whatever the Wraith call their version of a fridge!"

His rant was meet with a surprised stare.

Well, how they were expecting him to pantomime him believing that his team was not dead?


End file.
